Building and operating the Atlantic Inland

 Generally I like locating the Dispatcher in a separate room or some isolated position.  On AIR1 my dispatcher was located downstairs (the layout was upstairs) in the crew lounge. I liked this but it was a source of distraction, from time to time, to the dispatcher. Off-duty crew members often talked to the dispatcher.  On AIR2 I originally planned to put the dispatcher in an isolated position, under the stairs. No off duty crew, no random passers by. Then I operated at Jerry Dziedzic’s layout. His operator, not dispatcher, was located inside a helix in an “Office”, with a window/pass through to distribute orders.  My Helix is located in a position near both ends of the layout, and the coal marshaling yard as well, and it has a side facing the crew lounge for crew calling. I do not, as a general rule, want to have an “operator”. I do not like the, what I consider, unnecessary delays caused by the dictation between dispatcher and operator. I much prefer that the dispa...

 I hate when I’m forced to pair up at an op session. I think I work better and more efficiently by myself.  I would sincerely like the option to refuse two person crews, and not get penalized by getting a crummy job, or being forced to drop out all together. I’m not sure who dreamed up this idea that operating a job on a model railroad would somehow be more fun with two people making the decisions. Also I’d like it VERY MUCH if I was informed well before hand that I was going to be forced into this situation, so I can save myself the expense of the trip. Okay, I’m not a fan of two man crews, but I have had a few very nice experiences with two man crews. At Patrick Pope’s layout switching Mesa (I believe) is much easier with two men.  A few weeks ago at Jerry Dziedzic’s layout I was paired with Doug Good and I thought that turned out well (Of course you’ll have to ask Doug about that!) As I’ve gotten older I’ve become less and less “love-able”, I’m not that easy to get alo...

 While this is a short note describing two local industries, it’s also a commentary on life in a Big City versus a Small Town.   The two industries in question are Helena Agricultural Chemicals and H.H. Oomps Logistics.  Both are contemporary industries, both have extremely small structures, and both deal with literally hundreds of covered hoppers every week, although I regularly see tank cars at Helena as well as a boxcar about once a month. Oomps (Rhymes with Mumps) deals strictly with plastic pellet hoppers. Here in Winchester, we are THE headquarters for Trex. We also are home to at least two Rubbermaid plants. There are other plastic users in town but these two make up the bulk of the users in town.  Oomps acts as a warehouse and clearing house for hundreds of plastic pellet loads; they arrive and are sorted at Oomps then they are either trans loaded to trucks or cuts of classified hoppers are taken from the Oomps class yard to the appropriate end user. Pellets ...

  I have been debating this long and hard for a while. On the prototype motive power assignments are made WELL in advance. At the very least motive power is assigned by class of locomotive as opposed to assigning a specific locomotive (locals might get their power assigned regularly, For example here in Winchester the “Strasburg Turn” ( My name for the train) gets the same power nearly every day, and has for years). On a lot of layouts the train card often comes laminated and the motive power is permanently assigned (I recently operated on a layout where the extras had laminated train briefs with the motive power permanently called out, even so far as to have a notification in the printed time-table of “Extra 401”). I am not comfortable with this idea of permanently assigning locomotives to a job. I agree that on my railroad loaded eastward coal trains should get a 1200 class locomotive (1200 class steam locomotives are class Y  2-8-8-2  ‘s), just not the same one EVERY d...

 On AIR 1 I started experimenting with enhanced passenger operations. Many of us run passenger trains across our layout’s. Some of us ask our passenger trains to do a fair/moderate amount of switching. I operate on two layouts that go a step further, asking their passenger trains to set out “mail bags” (Represented by a waybill).  Only Al Daumann and I regularly ask out passenger trains to do the following: Switch cars Pick-up and drop off passengers along the route (Passengers are simulated with a ticket or a waybill slip) Pick-up and drop off mail (Mail is simulated by a waybill) Pick-up and drop off express Express (Express packages are simulated by a waybill or “Express Bill of Lading”) Pick-up loaded milk cans and drop off MTY milk cans (Milk cans are simulated by a waybill or “Can Bill”) Make flag stops ( Crews are alerted to a flag stop by a message in their packet and a flag displayed at the pick-up point) Together all these functions are called Enhanced Passenger Oper...